Word: scugnizzo
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...called scugnizzi (spinning tops) began their practice of buying and selling American G.I.s. One would pick up a soldier, promise him everything, and lead him into back streets. Another kid might buy the prospect for 300 lire, and he was thus passed from hand to hand until an older scugnizzo decided it was time to act. The G.I. was first made muscio (dead drunk), and once he had passed out, his clothes were literally sold off his back, beginning with shoes and ending with underwear. That normally covered the cost of purchase, and the contents of the wallet were pure...
...joined a knot of scugnizzi for a handout, then drifted off with them. Suddenly a big teen-ager turned on him and snapped: "Who are you?" "What do you want?" countered Father Borelli. The leader ordered: "Take your hands out of your pockets!" "Why?" asked the priest. The scugnizzo lunged forward with a razor, and Father Borelli removed his hands. Thus he learned a scugnizzo rule: concealed hands mean concealed weapons...
...tide of hungry, hard-bitten little boys that has flowed into Mater Dei ever since. At last, one day Father Borelli felt sure enough of success to walk among the scugnizzi in his clerical robes. No one recognized him until he produced a snapshot of himself dressed as a scugnizzo. First they gaped in astonishment, then they crowded in to touch his habit and kiss his hand...
...schoolboy of Naples, playing hookey and swimming in the bay. He did not take kindly to education or to work in the De Lucca Mechanical Laboratories where his father was employed, and so on his mother's death, Enrico, aged fifteen, left home and became a scugnizzo, a wandering singer of the streets, singing for a few soldi or for the pure joy of song. He was called "Arichetielli," and soon became known as the best boy singer in Naples. After that comes the story of his swift rise to fame, too familiar now to need repeating here...
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